Listen to this interview by chief visionary Natasha Davis-Bowen here:
Q & A Coaching for Success. What’s Your Questions? Today’s Featured Coach is Mr. Warren Whitlock, the Twitter Whiz & Master who has authored "Twitter Revolution" & "Profitable Social Media". Warren teaches business owners, authors, & individuals the art behind making Social Media work for you to its maximum capacity. Have your questions ready for Mr. Warren Whitlock!
From the start, I’ve advocated connecting with people on multiple networks to find where they like to interact and increase the odds of having a meaningful conversation.
I wound up on Twitter back in 2007 when I found that those I wanted to network with were there. While I ended up working with @CoachDeb on the first book on Twitter, I’ve never been an advocate for “hanging out” on one favorite web site. After all, we are doing this to talk to people.
When I started building my social media network, I’d got to blogs, web sties, email address books and in person meet ups to find the right connection. Today, I use tools like Gist, Rapportive.com and now HoeverMe
The tools change, but one thing stays the same… most people welcome hearing from you when you talk about what they are interested in, share what they are promoting with your network and add value to their conversations wherever they are having that conversation.
Here a “how to tweet” question that comes up often, so I’m posting some of the research that we did when we wrote Twitter Revolution.. it still great advice today.
One common social media automation idea is that you can reach different people in different time zones by setting up a repeated tweet every few hours.
Fact is, you will reach more people with that specific tweet, and if you are tweeting just the one tweet it’s likely that almost no one will notice.
Unfortunately, most of the people using this technique fail to add any real value beyond the self promotional tweets. So while I would never say that you should not repeat a tweet (after all, our mantra is NO RULES) I do regularly caution against having a profile page that is full of “come and look at me” type tweets
You would think that the skies would open up, and I’d get struck by lightning by the Twitter gods. Think again. In the case of repeating a tweet four times in thirty-two hours, there was a big spike for the first tweet, but the next three still yielded very good results. In total, the four posts resulted in 5,059 clickthroughs in tranches of 1,481, 1,415, 1,208, and 955; note, however, I looked at the server log and approximately 20% of these clickthroughs are bots. 700 people signed up for this service, by the way, because of my four tweets.
As suspected, more people saw the tweet each time it went out and the total clicks went way up.
What Guy left out was that he has a reputation for saying very smart things and engaging in real conversations with many tweeps.
What I prefer to see is self promotion with variety. I often use the same URL in a dozen or more tweets in a single day, for instance, the link to my Twitter radio show However, I use the link in unique tweets, mostly in answer to people asking me a question.
Sometimes, I’ll promote an upcoming event or show with several hints about the show. One tweet will have the show announcement, another will thank the guest I’ve booked, yet another will mention what we will cover on the show.
What about RT (ReTweets)?
Use the same ideas for tweets I see from those I follow, I often send out their message to my tweet stream. I’ll use the lazy RT button if that is available in the software client I’m using that day, sometimes I think what was written was perfect. But usually, I try to add value with a comment, or by writing my own tweet. Other times, I’ll see a link, read a post and end up with a blog post of my own (as happened today with this post.. thanks to @24k for the link)
It’s only 140 characters.. be creative and write more about your subject. Anyone seeing more than one will appreciate the details and you get a new batch of readers each time. When you get to have hundreds of thousands of followers, you can repeat without worry. Until then, give us unique valuable content whenever you can.
How to Tweet?
There are NO RULES on what you post of Twitter. It’s a communication channel and whatever works for the parties in a conversion is perfect.
For me, great content is always great content, and nothing is a important as talking to real people, answering real question and having conversations.
@joycemckee was looking for success stories for a report on Trade Show Use of Twitter.
Here’s my submission…
By searching for the hashtags (unique ID words related to the event, usually starting with # sign) on the event the week before it starts, I am able to see who the real leaders are.
I follow many of the attendees and all of the speakers (Twitter links are on speaker bio pages and/or their blogs). Often I meet several of the speakers before the event starts, and make appointment to meet up with attendees that are active in the community. I also check to see if the is a “Tweet Up” (meeting of those who have connected on Twitter) and add that to my schedule.
I’ve found that the best opportunities at most shows happen in this network. Once these tweeps (Twitter users) decide to RT (”ReTweet: A Twitter post that gets repeated) I know that a large active group will be aware of whatever I’m promoting.
Two more tips to get traffic to your booth:
1) Give-aways for Twitter users. I often tweet “I’ve got a copy of Twitter Revolution for the next person who finds me.” It works for @The RealShaq with NBA tickets and it will work for you.
2) Get your staff tweeting. This is not a media to advertise on.. this is a way to network. Get everyone involved. Your customers expect INDIVIDUALS to be available
Watch Twit Tippin Tuesday on eMarketingVids
